Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Depth to Lithosphere-Asthenosphere Boundary GeoTIFF grids for the United States, Canada, and Australia

Metadata Updated: September 17, 2025

The lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary (LAB), calculated from calibrated surface wave tomography models, is marked by an abrupt change in seismic velocity between the earth's cooler lithosphere (higher seismic velocities) and the warmer and more ductile asthenosphere (lower seismic velocities). GeoTIFF grids that were extracted from global compilations (Hoggard and others, 2020) that map depth to the LAB for the United States and Canada, and for Australia are provided in this report. Previous studies have identified locations of sediment-hosted Pb-Zn deposits occur along a gradient in the depth of the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. The LAB gradient is interpreted to represent a change from thicker to thinner lithosphere which has localized the development of basins prospective for Pb-Zn mineralization (Hoggard and others, 2020). The GeoTIFF grids were used as evidential layers in developing prospectivity models for basin-hosted Pb-Zn mineralization (Lawley and others, 2022). References Hoggard, M.J., Czarnota, K., Richards, F.D., Huston, D.L., Jaques, A.L., and Ghelichkhan, S., 2020, Global distribution of sediment–hosted metals controlled by craton edge stability: Nature Geoscience, v. 13, no. 7, p. 504-510, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0593-2. Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E, Graham, G.E., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Czarnota, K., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., Hayward, N., Barlow, M., Emsbo, P., Coyan, J., San Juan, C.A., and Gadd, M.G., 2022, Data-driven prospectivity modelling of sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems and their critical raw materials: Ore Geology Reviews, v. 141, no. 104635, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104635.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 17, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 17, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-61da068cd34ed7929400b5a2
Data Last Modified 2025-03-31T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id ea1638ff-4f3e-4f52-a235-5f04a842f9c9
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -178.8500, -43.6500, 153.6500, 83.1500
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash ddc0ef97ddd77d5d01ae9c744ade126782ec7d4ebfb03155e73699b502ef6c3e
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -178.8500, -43.6500, -178.8500, 83.1500, 153.6500, 83.1500, 153.6500, -43.6500, -178.8500, -43.6500}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.